Sorry, Jim Wallis: Rumors Of The Religious Right’s Death Are Greatly Exaggerated

Periodically, a self-appointed political pundit comes along and announces the death of the Religious Right. You can count on it happening every two or three years. This time, moderate evangelical minister Jim Wallis is presiding at the Religious Right’s alleged funeral. Wallis, author of the popular book God’s Politics, asserted recently in Time magazine that America has entered a post-Religious Right era. He insisted that other religious voices will now dominate.

“Many Republicans have had it with the Religious Right,” Wallis writes. “Both sides are asking how to connect faith and values with politics. People know now that God is neither a Republican nor a Democrat, and we are all learning that religion should not be in the pocket of any political party; it calls all of us to moral accountability.”

Wallis makes some good points. Indeed, God is not a Republican or a Democrat, and efforts to identify party platform planks with the Almighty are offensive and alarming. But Wallis could not be more wrong about the state of the Religious Right. To be sure, the November election results stung groups like the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family – but that doesn’t mean they are ready to pack their bags and slink away. As recent headlines show, the Religious Right continues to flex considerable muscle within the Republican Party. Consider the GOP’s presidential aspirants. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is suddenly no longer pro-choice or pro-gay. U.S. Sen. John McCain has spent the past six years cozying up to Jerry Falwell. Even ex-New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani feels compelled to talk about how much he hates legal abortion. These men know they can’t win without backing from key Religious Right leaders.

Like a vampire from a schlocky drive-in horror movie, the Religious Right is often staked but never truly finished off. There is always another sequel. Pundits said the Religious Right would die after Falwell shut down the Moral Majority in 1989. Others said the election of President Bill Clinton in 1992 was a mortal blow. Still others opined that the movement was finished when the Christian Coalition began to lose influence about five years ago. All of these predictions were wrong. Religious Right organizations and leaders come and go – but the movement soldiers on. When the Moral Majority collapsed, the Christian Coalition picked up the pieces. When the Coalition went into eclipse, the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family stepped into the gap. Religious Right organizations command huge budgets and the loyalty of millions of Americans – people who believe that only their religious views are pleasing to God. They burn to use the force of government to make the rest of live by their version of “biblical morality.”



http://blog.au.org/2007/02/23/sorry-jim-wallis-rumors-of-the-religious-rights-death-are-greatly-exaggerated/

undergoing change, and an answer to all puzzles without doing any of the work to find out is ever going to lose its appeal to the conservative mind.

Oh, the gods and the sets of rules and the buildings will come and go, but what it offers to frightened people will always be with us.

scandel which involved republicans at the very top and their religious right buddies then they will never leave. But then no body hardly knew about it the repukes covered it up.

The address is

http://www.thelawparty.org/FranklinCoverup/franklin.htm

Can you believe what would have happened if the democrats had been involved in something like this.

like that AG in Kansas, also in South Dakota, and both got slapped down. The more they show themselves, the more they drive people away. I suspect after '08 when the GOP is prostrating themselves before, these puritans, they will get stomped even more. After that the sane moderate or the libertarians will come in and rebuild the GOP, and that will be the last of the Fundies for a long time.

is that "all of us" feel that religion calls us to moral accountability.

He is a theocrat.